{"id":661097,"date":"2025-12-29T21:45:27","date_gmt":"2025-12-29T21:45:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/661097\/"},"modified":"2025-12-29T21:45:27","modified_gmt":"2025-12-29T21:45:27","slug":"united-states-offers-ukraine-a-15-year-security-guarantee-in-peace-plan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/661097\/","title":{"rendered":"United States offers Ukraine a 15-year security guarantee in peace plan"},"content":{"rendered":"

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) \u2014 The United States is offering Ukraine security guarantees<\/a> for a period of 15 years as part of a proposed peace plan, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Monday, though he said he would prefer an American commitment of up to 50 years to deter Russia from further attempts to seize its neighbor\u2019s land<\/a> by force.<\/p>\n

U.S. President Donald Trump hosted Zelenskyy<\/a> at his Florida resort on Sunday and insisted that Ukraine and Russia are \u201ccloser than ever before\u201d to a peace settlement.<\/p>\n

Negotiators are still searching for a breakthrough on key issues, however, including whose forces withdraw from where in Ukraine and the fate of Ukraine\u2019s Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant<\/a>, one of the 10 biggest in the world. Trump noted that the monthslong U.S.-led negotiations could still collapse.<\/p>\n

\u201cWithout security guarantees, realistically, this war will not end,\u201d Zelenskyy told reporters in voice messages responding to questions sent via a WhatsApp chat.<\/p>\n

Ukraine has been fighting Russia since 2014, when it illegally annexed Crimea and Moscow-backed separatists took up arms in the Donbas, a vital industrial region in eastern Ukraine.<\/p>\n

Details of the security guarantees have not become public, but Zelenskyy said Monday they include how a peace deal would be monitored as well as the \u201cpresence\u201d of partners. He didn\u2019t elaborate, but Russia has said it won\u2019t accept the deployment in Ukraine of troops from NATO countries.<\/p>\n

Trump and Putin discuss peace efforts by phone<\/p>\n

Trump on Monday had \u201ca positive call\u201d with Russian President Vladimir Putin about the war, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a post on X. The two leaders had also spoken shortly before Trump\u2019s talks with Zelenskyy on Sunday as the American president tries to steer the countries toward a settlement.<\/p>\n

Later, to reporters, the U.S. president similarly characterized the call as \u201ca very good talk\u201d and said \u201cwe have a few very thorny issues, as you can imagine\u201d in the negotiations to end the war. <\/p>\n

\u201cIf we get them resolved, you\u2019re going to have peace,\u201d he added. <\/p>\n

Putin\u2019s foreign affairs adviser Yuri Ushakov said Trump is pushing Ukraine to seek a comprehensive peace agreement and not demand a temporary respite for its military through a ceasefire. Putin has insisted on a full settlement before any truce.<\/p>\n

In Monday\u2019s call, Putin told Trump that Ukraine attempted to attack the Russian leader\u2019s residence in northwestern Russia with long-range drones almost immediately after Trump\u2019s Sunday talks with Zelenskyy.<\/p>\n

The attack \u201ccertainly will not be left without a serious response,\u201d Ushakov said, adding that Moscow will now review its negotiating position.<\/p>\n

Zelenskyy denied the Russian claim of an attack, describing it as an attempt to manipulate the peace process. He said it was \u201canother lie\u201d and came about because Moscow is unnerved by progress in peace efforts.<\/p>\n

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Ukraine launched an attack on Putin\u2019s residence in the Novgorod region overnight from Sunday to Monday using 91 long-range drones.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t like it. It\u2019s not good,\u201d Trump said of the alleged attack on Putin\u2019s home, confirming the Russian leader informed him of it during their call Monday morning.<\/p>\n

Russia claims its forces are advancing<\/p>\n

As indications suggest negotiations could come to a head in January, before the fourth anniversary of Russia\u2019s full-blown invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022, Putin on Monday claimed that Russian troops are advancing in the eastern Donetsk region of Ukraine and are also pressing their offensive in the southern Zaporizhzhia region.<\/p>\n

Putin has sought to portray himself as negotiating from a position of strength as Ukrainian forces strain to keep back the bigger Russian army.<\/p>\n

He emphasized at a meeting with senior military officers the need to create military buffer zones along the Russian border. \u201cThis is a very important task as it ensures the security of Russia\u2019s border regions,\u201d Putin said.<\/p>\n

French President Emmanuel Macron<\/a> said Kyiv\u2019s allies will meet in Paris in early January to \u201cfinalize each country\u2019s concrete contributions\u201d to the security guarantees.<\/p>\n

Trump said he would consider extending U.S. security guarantees for Ukraine beyond 15 years, according to Zelenskyy. The guarantees would be approved by the U.S. Congress as well as by parliaments in other countries involved in overseeing any settlement, he said.<\/p>\n

Zelenskyy said he wants the 20-point peace plan under discussion to be approved by Ukrainians in a national referendum.<\/p>\n

However, holding a ballot requires a ceasefire of at least 60 days, and Moscow has shown no willingness for a truce without a full settlement.<\/p>\n

Ukrainians doubt Putin\u2019s sincerity<\/p>\n

On the snowy streets of Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital, people were skeptical about the chances of peace.<\/p>\n

One military veteran who uses the call sign Sensei, in keeping with the rules of the Ukrainian military, said Putin\u2019s record in power shows he can\u2019t be trusted. Sensei joined the military in 2022 and was wounded that year during the battle for the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut. Now, he said, almost nobody from his company is still alive.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut all these sacrifices, they are not in vain, because we need to prove … that we exist, that we are, that we have the right to our existence, to our territory, to our culture, to our language,\u201d the 65-year-old veteran told The Associated Press.<\/p>\n

Denys Shpylovyi, a 20-year-old student who was home for the holidays, said Trump\u2019s willingness to accept Putin\u2019s arguments has put Zelenskyy in a difficult situation.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut I\u2019m thankful for some progress. They are speaking, and maybe someday there will be hope,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Oleh Saakian, a Ukrainian political scientist, said it was a good sign that Zelenskyy is managing to build a relationship with Trump, although he noted that \u201cnothing has been adopted yet, nothing has been signed yet.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t see these negotiations bringing us closer to real peace, because they are based on equality between the aggressor and the victim, they are based on complete disregard for international law, and \u2026 disregard for European security,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

Associated Press journalists Seung Min Kim in Washington, and Vasilisa Stepanenko and Volodymr Yurchuk in Kyiv, Ukraine, contributed to this report.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

Follow AP\u2019s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/russia-ukraine<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"KYIV, Ukraine (AP) \u2014 The United States is offering Ukraine security guarantees for a period of 15 years…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":661098,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7654],"tags":[32,34,2000,299,4179,8614,19428,10546,1411,285,7661,10243,657,7662,333,2601,263,26830],"class_list":{"0":"post-661097","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ukraine","8":"tag-donald-trump","9":"tag-emmanuel-macron","10":"tag-eu","11":"tag-europe","12":"tag-general-news","13":"tag-international-agreements","14":"tag-karoline-leavitt","15":"tag-kyiv","16":"tag-paris","17":"tag-politics","18":"tag-russia-ukraine-war","19":"tag-sergey-lavrov","20":"tag-ukraine","21":"tag-ukraine-government","22":"tag-vladimir-putin","23":"tag-volodymyr-zelenskyy","24":"tag-world-news","25":"tag-yuri-ushakov"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115805049581887116","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/661097","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=661097"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/661097\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/661098"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=661097"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=661097"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=661097"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}